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Mom failure

Sometimes things happen that remind me of my lack of perfection as a mom.

I know it may come as a surprise, but I have been known to make mistakes. Just ask my 14 year old.

And even more surprising, sometimes things happen that force me to remember that even my kids aren’t perfect.

Such is the week I’ve had.

One example…. I just had a birthday. My 40th. It’s one of those milestone birthdays, if you’re into paying attention to that sort of thing.

I found a post from my oldest on my Facebook page.

Happiest of birthdays to my beautiful momma!!! I really don’t know what I would do without you, you’ve been my best friend for 18 years (except from ages 11-12 when I was a total psychopath; sorry about that).. there’s no one else I would rather tickle until they collapse and cry, or lip sync Sky Full of Stars to until I give myself whiplash..thanks for being the best mom out there and I hope you have an amazingly wonderfully awesome-sauce day ❤❤❤❤❤

And so, there I was. Feeling pretty smug about the whole parenting thing. But how could I not??! Here was proof of my success! She’s 18, a legal adult…. so I succeeded!! I raised her to adulthood and she still loves me!!

Pretty great present.

And then….. later…. a text from the 14 year old.

I won’t show the text, as he would likely kill me for that…. but the gist of it was that he decided I was extremely selfish for going to a “random” kids birthday party and then off to babysit my nephew, because he had come home after football, and made time for me at that moment and I wasn’t there waiting for him. And I could find my present in the trash if I wanted to look for it.

Needless to say, a complete downward shift to the day….resulting in a lot of angry texting, and the realization that I am not a perfect mother…. not because I did anything wrong (I absolutely did not)… but because if I was truly a perfect mother, wouldn’t all of my kids always think so?

Oh… he’s going through the hormonal shift, and still sometimes seems to be dealing with some anger issues stemming from my divorce from his father. I know we love each other, and pray that one day he will be a bit more rational….but it’s still not easy to deal with.

And then… then, the icing on the cake!!

At the “random” birthday party for his classmate, a very precocious girl led Sammy away from the pack of children and proceeded to moon him. A couple parents saw this, it was over by the time I got to where he was. They said he didn’t seem too impressed, and walked away. I did find his little sister doing her best to pull her pants down though, and assumed she had to potty…..

Once I found out what happened, I talked to Sammy and told him if anyone does that he needs to walk away from them, and tell them it’s not nice. I really thought we were clear about this.

A couple days later, I was at the park with my two little ones, and a couple friends with their kids.

Two of the boys ran over, yelling “Sammy pulled his pants down!!”

What??!! Not my perfect boy! Surely, SURELY…he had mulch in his pants, or a bee……

I find him.

He looks guilty.

“did you pull your pants down?”

He did.

” Do you know why?”

He didn’t.

He did finally point out that he didn’t pull down his underwear, but clearly wasn’t ready for the repercussions beyond the initial shock value of his action. Seems the whole pants-dropping thing had made an impact on him after all. Clearly we had more to discuss….

He sulked in a tire swing the rest of the time, as the other parents laughed and told stories of things their own kids had done in the past.

So lessons this week for me in humility, patience, and proof that none of us are perfect.